I'm the Founder and Managing Partner of Ironfire Capital LLC, which runs a tech-focused hedge fund and angel fund. I did a Ph.D. in Management at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business in New York, with a specialization in Strategic Management. You can follow me on Twitter @ericjackson, subscribe to me on Facebook, follow me on Sina Weibo, or Circle me on Google+. My email is: dr.eric.jackson@me.com

Dan Loeb Doesn't Snitch To Third-Rate British Newspapers

Yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph article saying Facebook (FB) and Yahoo(YHOO) were in talks over partnering in search is bunk.

The Sunday Telegraph NEVER gets scoops in technology.

They’ve been a mouthpiece for Research In Motion (RIMM) longs for the better part of a year. Any time that stock seemed to ping $6 in the last year – ta-da! – a story would run in the Telegraph saying they were going to be bought, or open to being bought, or thinking of hiring some people to study how they might be bought.

It was a total sham. The editors at the Telegraph should be embarrassed for being played as they were — if they even care, which they probably don’t.

So I don’t pay any attention to what they’ve said about Yahoo and Facebook.

However, I noticed that some people in refuting the substance of the Telegraph report from yesterday implied that it must have been Dan Loeb on the board who leaked this report.

I’d be shocked if Loeb did this, and I think it’s wrong to suggest he would.

Here’s why:

1. Dan Loeb has had a position in Yahoo since August 2011. When has he ever given a press interview to pump Yahoo’s stock or reportedly “leaked” something to the press that he wanted to see in print? It hasn’t happened.

2. Dan Loeb is the opposite of a media whore. There has only been on CNBC once in the last 15 months talking about Yahoo and that was at the Delivering Alpha conference where he only spoke briefly. There’s nothing wrong with being a media whore. Some of my best friends have called me one. If Bill Ackman had had 10% of his fund in Yahoo since August 2011, how many times do you think he’d have been on CNBC discussing the stock and his plans? Yahoo’s stock would arguably be a lot higher now than it is if Dan Loeb was as loquacious as Bill Ackman. But he’s not. Which makes me wonder why people think he’s suddenly going to leak some dumb story now?

3. Didn’t leaks to the press stop once Loeb came on board? How many people knew Marissa Mayer was going to be hired before she was? Nobody. And who broke the news? The New York Times. That wasn’t by accident. Marissa and the board wanted it that way. So why are people assuming now that someone on the board has decided to go back to leaking news?

4. The former Yahoo board chronically leaked stuff to the press. The new board has not been leaking stuff.

5. If Dan Loeb was going to leak something to the press to juice the stock price, why would he leak it to a third-rate newspaper like the Telegraph? Why wouldn’t he go back to the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal?

6. Would Loeb really leak something to the press to help his “hedge fund buddies” who are now long the stock? As I recall, David Einhorn was long Yahoo before Loeb and then bailed because Jack Ma’s taking back of Alipay wasn’t what Einhorn “signed up for.” Is Loeb going to want to do Einhorn a favor now after Loeb’s done all the heavy lifting and Einhorn’s jumped on the bandwagon again? Would you?

7. It would be a little hypocritical of Loeb to criticize the prior board for leaking and then turn around and do the same thing.

I recall all the Silicon Valley technology folks characterizing Loeb as a dangerous “New York hedge fund manager” who knew nothing about tech when he was running a proxy contest. Several said he would “gut” the company if given the chance. They pointed to Carl Icahn as a preview of how Loeb would behave once in control of the company. They said that Yahoo shareholders should agree to Marc Andreessen and Silver Lake taking the company “under” at $17.50/share. That’s a deal that would have been great for Andreessen and his investors but not Yahoo shareholders. And all Loeb’s done since getting on board is hire Marissa Mayer.

In all likelihood, this Telegraph “report” was probably completely fabricated from someone who was long the stock of Yahoo or Facebook or both. That same “source” was probably long RIM for all the prior leaks to the Telegraph in the last year.

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